Philips Hue A19 Light Bulb Review

Philips Hue is one of the most recognizable brands of light bulbs today. Established in 2012, they manufacture multicolor LED lamps and light bulbs. Since, they’ve had three generations of models, the last in 2016. When it was first released, the Hue system was exclusive to the Apple Store, praised for its integrations with iOS devices. Now, Philips Hue bulbs are integrated with everything from Amazon Alexa to Google Assistant and everything in between. It’s only been a few years, but Philips Hue light bulbs have really taken off.

I purchased the Philips Hue A19 light bulb in warm white. In this review, I’ll tell you about its design, features, installation, and mobile app. Let’s get started!

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Philips Hue A19 Smart Bulb

Philips Hue A19 Smart Bulb

The Philips Hue A19 has a ton of great features including away mode, schedules, scenes, sunrise/ sunset mode, geofencing, plus a lot of smart platform integrations.

Design of the Philips Hue A19

Philips Hue A19 Light Bulb. Photo provided by Philips Hue.

Your Philips Hue A19 connects through the Hue bridge using a Zigbee connection. From there, the bulb will communicate with your app through Wi-Fi. The bulb I purchased is in a warm white, and is dimmable which I love. It shines in 10 watts and has a lamp base of the size E26, a standard of lightbulbs. This bulb is LED, which means it’ll last a while- but I’ll get to that in a bit.

Features of the Philips Hue A19

Philips Hue’s A19 light bulb has pretty much every feature you can imagine. First of all, you can put it in away mode so the bulbs will go on and off to make it seem like you’re home. So not only are the bulbs part of your smart home, they’re also part of your home security system. Of course, you’ll be able to create schedules for your light bulbs to turn on and off automatically at certain times of day, like having the lights come on when you get back from work.

Smart Light Bulb Schedules

For different combinations of lighting, you’ll be able to create scenes. Customize your light for reading, watching a movie, having a party- whatever it is, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you want to change your lighting. You can even change multiple light bulbs at once through your mobile app.

Now, some of us are up with the sun, and I happen to be one of those people. That’s why I’m so excited that this light bulb can sync with the sunrise and sunset. The bulb uses GPS to place itself, and from there will know when the day has started and ended.

Sunrise/ Sunset Mode with Smart Light Bulbs

If that’s not easy enough for you, you can even sync your phone to the bulb so that lights turn on or off when you’re home or away, a feature called geofencing.

Smart Light Bulb Geofencing

To vocally control the lights themselves, Philips Hue gives you the most smart platform integrations I’ve seen from a light bulb. You can use Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant, or Microsoft Cortana. They also have partnerships with IFTTT, Logitech, Nest, SmartThings, Xfinity Home, Vivint, Razer, Elk, and RunLessWire, so you’ll be able to sync connected devices with your lights.

Finally, you’ll be able to allow access to multiple users so you’re not the only one with control over your bulb. With all these awesome features, I’m pretty sure other people are going to want in.

What doesn’t the Philips Hue A19 offer, you may be thinking. The answer is energy monitoring. While some light bulbs can show you how much energy they’re using and how much they have left, this bulb cannot. However, this is a relatively small issue as the bulb has a rated life of 20 years and an estimated yearly energy cost of $1.14. You can rest assured that this bulb will last longer and use less energy than your average light bulb.

Installing the Philips Hue A19

The Philips Hue App

The Philips Hue app is where you’ll actually be able to utilize all the bulb’s featured that I mentioned above. From the app, you can control the lights, create schedules and scenes, set up geofencing, and sync it with any other connected devices or smart home platforms.

Now, I’m super pleased to say that, after the company updated it significantly, the Philips Hue app currently has a rating of 3.4 from the Google Play store and 4.4 from the Apple store.

“Easy and straightforward, but very powerful and extensible too. Not overly fancy, emphasis on function over form [and] makes a simple interface that is quick and convenient to use,”

wrote Android-user Thomas Robin in a recent five-star review of the app.

Get Best Offer

Philips Hue A19 Smart Bulb

Philips Hue A19 Smart Bulb

The Philips Hue A19 has a ton of great features including away mode, schedules, scenes, sunrise/ sunset mode, geofencing, plus a lot of smart platform integrations.

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Gabe Turner is an attorney and journalist with a passion for home tech and secure, efficient living. Since graduating from NYU Law, he has maintained a paradoxical existence of trying to live life adventurously while remaining staunchly risk-averse. He is torn by the dual desires of wanting to only be in Brooklyn writing about housing policy and smart home tech and aspiring to visit his friends scattered across the globe. Gabe believes that stable, safe communities are the cornerstone to a vibrant and healthy society, and it is this passion that brought him to contribute to Security Baron.

2 thoughts on “Philips Hue A19 Light Bulb Review”

Hi Gabe I am new to Philips Hue, but I already love it. So far I got the Light-strip and the Philipe Hue Play both in color. It is awesome and I love that I can time it to automatically turn on in the morning when it is dark outside.